16 September 2009

The Ai Massacre

After stoning and burning to death Achan and his family, Joshua was back in business.

God told Joshua to do unto Ai as they did unto Jericho, except that this time the Israelites could keep some of the loot for themselves (instead of giving it all to him).
Thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves. Joshua 8.2
So that's what they did.

They killed the soldiers,
Joshua and all Israel … slew the men of Ai ... so that they let none of them remain or escape. 8.21-22
burned the city,
Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever. 8.28
murdered all the women and children,
Joshua drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. 8.26
killed the King of Ai, and hung his dead body on a tree.
The king of Ai he hanged on a tree until eventide. 8.29
Just like God told them to do.

And, finally, after they were done killing all the people, Joshua killed some animals as a "peace offering" to his bloody God of war.
Then Joshua built an altar unto the LORD ... and ... offered thereon burnt offerings unto the LORD, and sacrificed peace offerings. 8:30-31
One thing I really like about this story (What's not to like?) is that this time I don't have to guess the number of victims. The Bible tells us how many were killed: 12,000.
And … all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand. 8.25
God's next killing: God stops the sun so Joshua can get his killing done in the daylight

6 comments:

Baconsbud said...

Wow and here I thought maybe he would be merciful with the women and children this time. I guess it would have been worse for those that he has slaughtered if they had lived.

busterggi said...

According to the OT Yahweh was really into micromanagement.

Nowadays he doesn't show up at all & his kid only appears on toast and Cheetos.

I'm not gonna worship such a slacker.

Matthew Blanchette said...

Wow... guess Yaweh doesn't really like one-syllable towns that much.

v_quixotic said...

I heard a christian apologist say that the real victims of these massacres were the poor Israeli soldiers who had to carry out these orders on god's behalf...[sigh]

Ian said...

v_quixotic,

Ah, I see, so to them God isn't like Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong-Il, he's more like Douglas Haig or Robert Nivelle.

Talk about damning with faint praise.

Unknown said...

See This is how we supposed to roll.kill the lil baby's ,of our enemies ,God is a genius,!!!!